


Open to No One Else

by windfallswest



Series: Olin/Lands [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Last of The Jedi Series - Jude Watson
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 14:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18054626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: Complicated feelings are complicated. A day atBilliyon ka Ghar.





	Open to No One Else

Early morning sun filtered in through the storefront windows as Ferus moved the day's flowers from the little greenhouse in back to the shop displays. The side door opened, signalling the arrival of one of his coworkers. 

"Ferus? Are you here already, or did Manx leave the lights on last night?"

"No, it's me." Ferus paused by the door to the break room, off the workspace between the open shop front and the greenhouse, two potted reed-cane plants in his arms, on his way back through. "Good morning, Aya."

"Ugh, why are you always so awake this early in the morning?" Aya complained, putting her lunch in the half-size conservateur before turning to display her aggrieved expression. She was about Ferus' age, with blue-black hair and large, almond-shaped grey eyes, but there was a lingering pallor under her Bellassan-brown complexion. 

"Used to it, I suppose." Ferus shrugged apologetically.

Aya's mouth screwed up in a wry twist. "I guess I am out of practice waking up; comas will do that. Need a hand bringing the rest out?"

"Thanks," Ferus said.

Working together, it didn't take them long to finish the opening routine. Aya made him write out the specials on the holo-sign by the entrance while she opened the awning and dragged out the hover-displays, because she said his writing was better. Ferus admired her attitude. She'd spent the last two years in a coma, recovering not so long before Ferus had left the Jedi. No family, nothing left of her old life. _Hard not to draw parallels._

Aya called up the special orders on the counter terminal while they waited for the first customers to arrive. "Look at all these. Better hope it's a slow morning."

"I'll get started on them," Ferus volunteered. There were a dozen centrepieces someone had ordered for a dinner tonight, and he needed to think. "No stress."

Ferus liked the pre-ordered arrangements better, although overall he preferred tending the plants in the greenhouse. This was still new enough that he wasn't quite comfortable improvising in front of people. 

Moving to the semi-private workspace tucked back behind the displays and check-out counter, Ferus accessed the list of orders on the workbench terminal and sorted to see which was slated for pickup first. Aya yawned and took a gulp of caf from a disposable to-go cup, leaning on the doorframe to watch for the day's first customers. 

Their stories were similar, but only on the surface. Ferus had no family, but his old life had not been taken from him; he'd abandoned it. What had happened on Korriban hadn't been an accident, either. Sometimes, Ferus saw Aya or Cerri smiling, bright and happy, and all he could see was Darra. Darra smiling, and Darra dead. 

Maybe he didn't need to think.

Thinking was redundant. Ferus had thought it all to death before they ever got back to Coruscant; he didn't have to think about it. It was just with him. Not even the Force could erase grief.

_Darra would have loved these flowers._ It was that thought that had made him ask about the help wanted sign when he came in to buy that arrangement for Roan's parents, echoed by Roan's joking suggestion. She would have grinned to see him working here, although Anakin—but Ferus tried to focus on remembering her that way. Everything else was in the council's hands now, or done and past anyone's ability to change it. 

Cerri came in just ahead of the after-school rush, beating out her less-industrious classmates. She'd offered to lead him on a cross-country run outside the city last weekend, and she was pretty fast. Without pausing, Cerri swiped a couple of finished arrangements from the end of the workbench to put in the cool case along the wall.

The two girls gossiped dreadfully, mostly about people Ferus didn't know, although there were a handful of customers he now had trouble looking in the eye. To say nothing of the owners and employees of the nearby shops. Ferus tried to discourage the most prurient conversations, but even the Temple hadn't been too enlightened to have a gossip mill—although Ferus had more often been its subject than a party to it. 

Looking at Aya and Cerri, their heads bent together now, he had the feeling that things hadn't changed all that much. They looked more like twins than Payam and Durga Lands, except that Cerri's hair was short and dark brown instead of long and blue-black. She was more athletic, too; but that only stood to reason. 

Ferus smiled at Aya when she came back and leaned against the workbench. "Hey."

"How's it going back here? Need a break?"

Ferus had come up front a few times when things had been busy, but he was usually better about switching off with her. "No, just a lot on my mind, I guess. You go ahead." 

"Is it your boyfriend?" 

Aya, Cerri, and Manx had all been referring to Roan that way since the first time Ferus came into the shop. He found he was more self-conscious about the assumption now that it had become essentially accurate. Ferus had studied xenocultural sociology and sentient xenobiology, but he didn't know anything about _romance_. Did he _want_ romance? Did _Roan_? Ferus was still having an existential crisis every time they held hands, in large part because he wanted to never let go; it still felt so good. Roan made him feel so good, and it was confusing and exhilarating at the same time.

Ferus took the last of the centrepieces to the cool case; finished twenty minutes before the scheduled pick-up. He nodded politely to the customer Cerri had just rung up.

"What are you supposed to...do...in a relationship?" he asked, because he didn't think he could tell Aya and Cerri, _I made a mistake and it cost a friend her life._ He hadn't even been able to tell Roan. 

"Hold hands, make out, go one dates..." Aya caught Cerri's eye, and they both started giggling. 

Ferus pursed his lips. "Thank you, I've been educated in biological science. I meant, well...there's more to it than just that. Isn't there?"  
Cerri's gaze on him turned sympathetic. "More things you miss being raised by monks, huh?"

Ferus had simplified his personal history, since a lot of people found the word 'Jedi' distracting, saying that he was an orphan who'd been raised by monks but ultimately decided not to take his final vows to the order. That still got him some questions, but cut out most of the unintended conversational laser-mines surrounding his time as a Jedi, and especially his departure.

"So, is this what you've been brooding about all day?" Cerri continued.

Ferus eyed Aya, who smiled and patted his arm. "Is that what I've been doing?"

"She's the only one of us who's actually been in a relationship," Aya pointed out, although Ferus suspected there might be something developing between her and the musician who played in the commons across the street from the shop most days and had recently started wearing a flower tucked behind his ear, as well as a besotted grin. 

"If necking with Lias Tamboli in the back of her speeder and then having a screaming row in front of the chem labs after being stood up for the spring dance counts as a relationship." Cerri put her head on one side, chewing her lower lip and with an unsettling, speculative glint coming into her eyes. "Maybe you should wait and ask Manx."

"That's a suggestion I hadn't considered," Ferus responded in his best diplomatically noncommittal tone, which he had copied from Master Kenobi and not his own, less patient, master and which now mostly saw use delicately steering overenthusiastic patrons away from creating hideously clashing floral arrangements. 

Abigail Manx, the shop's owner, only worked in the shop a few days a week; what she did in her spare time was the subject of some of Aya and Cerri's most wild and improbable gossip. She was tall, with masses of curling, bright red hair, an attention-grabbing personal style, and a slightly perverse sense of humour. While Ferus had no doubt that Manx knew a great deal about the kind of relationships he had never had cause to explore, he wasn't particularly sanguine about what sort of advice she'd give.

"Maybe I'll just search the HoloNet archives." Ferus sighed.

"You can access the first forty series of _Parsecs of Passion_ for free," Aya said helpfully.

Ferus had even more cause to rethink asking his coworkers for advice when Roan came by at the end of his shift. There was, thankfully, no giggling; but if Cerri and Aya kept glancing sideways at each other like that, they were going to trip over something. 

Conscientiously, Ferus allowed the distraction to remove him from the shop. They stopped for dinner at the café where they'd met, but it was busy enough that they took their food to go and found a clear spot on the well-maintained lawn of the lakeside park. 

That was a popular destination, too, but at least the people and noise weren't confined. Ferus noticed Roan watching him and made an effort to relax. He asked about Roan's day, then his family, listening as he lay back on the grass, Roan's hand clasped in his. 

Roan reclined next to him, bringing their bodies into casual alignment. Ferus somehow wound up with his head resting on Roan's stomach and fingers carding through his hair. He stared up through the new leaves on the shade-trees' sprawling branches at the cloud-streaked sky, and for some reason instead of peace felt the urge to bury his face in Roan's broad chest and cling to him like a handhold in a hull breach.

"Siri Tachi. My—master. That's who you should com if you want embarrassing stories," Ferus said, apropos of nothing. 

Roan, tracing the gold streak in Ferus' hair above his temple, froze briefly before wordlessly continuing his petting.

"I got a message from her yesterday. Checking in."

Roan was silent for several more heartbeats. "What's she like?" he asked at last.

"Sharp. Daring. All business, but not uptight. She was always telling me I ought to connect more to the Living Force—be in the moment. I've never been good at that. I remember when she chose me as her Padawn. I was so proud. So nervous, too, afraid of getting anything wrong."

He lapsed into glum silence as he reflected on exactly how _wrong_ everything had gone. Some people just weren't made for relaxation, like Master Kenobi. _Master Kenobi would never have—_

Roan squeezed his hand, just that. Ferus did turn his cheek into Roan's solid, comforting warmth then, closing his eyes. 

"Siri's not what you picture when you think of a Jedi. Keeps her hair short, hardly ever wears robes. She likes stretching out like this, but with her feet up. She'd do that while we talked... I miss that," Ferus admitted quietly. "More than anything else. There wasn't anything I couldn't talk to her about. Sometimes I wondered if that was what it was like, having parents." He rubbed his thumb over Roan's hand, still linked with his. "Have you ever had anybody like that?"

Roan was quiet for a long moment. Ferus opened his eyes to see the expression on his face. Roan was looking back at him. 

"I do now," he answered finally. 

Ferus' lips parted, but he didn't know what to say. Suddenly, Roan was curling in to kiss him, more open-mouthed, more _passionately_ than they had kissed before. Ferus kissed him back, clumsy and unpractised but wanting this more than he had ever thought possible. Roan's lips, his arms, his heartbeat. Fingers in his hair and hands clasped tightly. The smell of grass and the scent Roan wore, with a hint of the hot, savoury sauce that had come with his meal. Ferus could taste it in his mouth, too, and it was all too strange, too good, too good—

Ferus broke away, panting, fingers still anchored in Roan's hair, preventing him from moving away. Roan stroked his jaw and neck, murmuring soothing little sounds into the private space between them. Ferus felt like everything inside him had been laid out on the grass, things he hadn't even known were there.

"Roan..."

"Right here," Roan reassured him. 

Ferus kissed him again, because he could, because he wanted to, and he didn't have the words to communicate what he was feeling. Roan's response was more measured this time, something Ferus could keep pace with, and gentler, but still deep. 

They stayed in the park until the sun dipped below the horizon and stars began winking into view high up in the darkening sky above. Eventually, they had untangled themselves and now lay together, Roan's arm around Ferus as he rested his head on Roan's shoulder. 

"Maybe… _you_ should com her," Roan said, breaking a long silence. 

Ferus shifted uncomfortably. 

"It's up to you," Roan continued. "But I can tell you what my mother would say whenever she commed me on Corellia and I didn't get around to replying."

"I'll...think about it." And what would _Siri_ say? Ferus felt an involuntary smile twitch his lips. He knew from experience that she could be at least as tart as Enna Lands. Ducking her messages would only serve to deepen her disappointment in him. If he had learned, really learned, anything from this disaster, it was that just because something was painful wasn't a valid reason not to do it.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're thinking Aya's backstory is randomly intense, [go watch Weiss Kreuz and then curse my name forever](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL871eZ-e1Ih5xW-YRTYxRguK6Fqd8RVe2). I'm sorry, I'm a fandom klepto; I can't help it.


End file.
